South China's Economic Miracle - Will It Last?

By David D. Newsom. David D. Newsom, former undersecretary of state, is Cumming Memorial Professor of International Affairs, University of Virginia.|
The Christian Science Monitor, May 13, 1992 |Go to article overview

South China's Economic Miracle - Will It Last?

David D. Newsom. David D. Newsom, former undersecretary of state, is Cumming Memorial Professor of International Affairs, University of Virginia., The Christian Science Monitor

AS China moves into the last decade of the 20th century, the
future may well be determined not by what happens in Beijing, but
by what happens in South China.

The four coastal provinces of South China - Zheiiang, Fujian,
Guandong, and Guangxi - are today the sites of special economic
zones that provide opportunities for entrepreneurship and joint
ventures unknown in the rest of the People's Republic. As a result,
this area is among the fastest growing regions in the world with
annual economic growth rates of 9 percent or better.

The economic advantages are furthered by the financial and
commercial facilities of neighboring Hong Kong. Export and import
statistics dramatize the story. In 1990, nearly half - 42.9 percent
- of all China's exports went out through Hong Kong. In the same
year, 38.1 percent of China's imports came through Hong Kong.

Taiwan also enters the picture. Although precise statistics are
not available, China experts point to the growing trade with
Taiwan, both through Hong Kong and directly from Fujian province,
as well as growing Taiwan investment in Fujian and neighboring
regions of the South China coast.

Deng Xiaoping, China's venerable leader, reportedly sees in
South China the model for the reforms he increasingly espouses for
all of China. In January and February he made an extended visit to
these provinces. Some China watchers believe that Mr. Deng may, for
very different purposes, be following the pattern of Mao Zedung and
the Cultural Revolution. In the latter case, Mao, frustrated by his
inability to gain acceptance of his policies in Beijing, created a
counter movement in provinces outside. Deng may be doing the same
thing in anticipation of a party congress later this year in which,
using the examples in the South, he hopes to pressure more
conservative elements in Beijing ultimately to accept his economic
philosophy.

Although South China provinces provide impressive models, and
despite recent reports that suggest Deng is gathering support for
his economic reforms, many obstacles still lie ahead.

An entrenched ideological cadre still possesses power in the
government bureaucracy and the Communist Party. Opposition to forms
of capitalism and to profit-making does not die easily in a
communist environment - as the problems of the former Soviet Union
demonstrate. …

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